Meme of the week

[brixtonbrood]

Hugo novels read

The ones I've read are in bold - the ones I possess but haven't read have an asterisk beside them:

2005 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke - and indeed voted for
2004 Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
2003 Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer
2002 American Gods, Neil Gaiman
2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K. Rowling
2000 A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
1999 To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
1998 Forever Peace, Joe Haldeman
1997 Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
1996 The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson - started - got about 20 pages in - is it any good?
1995 Mirror Dance, Lois McMaster Bujold
1994 Green Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson *
1993 Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
1993 A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge
1992 Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold
1991 The Vor Game, Lois McMaster Bujold
1990 Hyperion, Dan Simmons
1989 Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
1988 The Uplift War, David Brin
1987 Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
1986 Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
1985 Neuromancer, William Gibson
1984 Startide Rising, David Brin
1983 Foundation's Edge, Isaac Asimov
1982 Downbelow Station, C. J. Cherryh
1981 The Snow Queen, Joan D. Vinge
1980 The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke
1979 Dreamsnake, Vonda N. McIntyre *
1978 Gateway, Frederik Pohl
1977 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm *
1976 The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
1975 The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
1974 Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
1973 The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov
1972 To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip José Farmer *
1971 Ringworld, Larry Niven
1970 The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
1969 Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner *
1968 Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
1967 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein *
1966 Dune, Frank Herbert
1966 "...And Call Me Conrad" (This Immortal), Roger Zelazny
1965 The Wanderer, Fritz Leiber
1964 "Here Gather the Stars" (Way Station), Clifford D. Simak
1963 The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
1962 Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
1961 A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M., Miller Jr
1960 Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
1959 A Case of Conscience, James Blish
1958 The Big Time, Fritz Leiber
1956 Double Star, Robert A. Heinlein
1955 They'd Rather Be Right (The Forever Machine), Mark Clifton & Frank Riley
1953 The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
So that's roughly a 50% hit rate on the fist 25 years and a 25% hit rate on the next 25. I'd make a vow to catch up, but I've got the impression that the 80's novels in particular have not aged well, or am I misjudging them? I guess I could give a Bujold a go, and if I like her then read all four of her Hugo winners at a stroke. But I'm really more interested in next year - Spin is definitely next on the list.

Comments

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Orson Scott Card's OK, but a bit faux-childish in the style. Some good stuff, though; rereadable.

[(Anonymous)]

It's been a while since I read Diamond Age, but my memory is that it's a cracking read. That said a) I read it after Snow Crash and before Cryptonomicon came out, so it may pale in comparison, b) I'm not sure how well some of the themes (e.g. Victoriana) have dated, and c) don't hold out for a brilliant ending.

[asajeffrey.livejournal.com]

Grr, that was me, silly LJ random-logout.

[jinty]

I can recommend Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake, that you have on your 'owned but not read' list.

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

You should definitely read the Vinge - Fire Upon the Deep and Deepnes in the Sky. Both are excellent. Ender's Game started as a short story, and is available on the web somewhere, so you could try reading that, and if you like it you might want to try more. Red/Green/Blue Mars is also a very good trilogy. Also, Zelazny's Lord of Light is well worth a read.

The two Brin books from the Eighties are part of a six-book sequence, and I'm not sure they'd work on their own, so you might not want to commit to the whole thing.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Good God!
I stopped paying attention when Brin won, as a sign that the Hugo voters should be spurned as I would a rabid weasel. However, I didn't realise so many monstrously bad books had won it since then. Now I feel dirty. Somehow the fact that the weakest Stephenson evah won is particularly depressing.
But then 'they' do say 'the golden age of SF is 13' so I shouldn't be surprised that the earlier half of the list seems immeasurably better than the 2nd half.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Well I was 13 in 1983, but I still draw the line at Foundation's Edge.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

You make a good point. The one where I was 13 was Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm.
Foundation's Edge is arguably the first crap one on the list, although I would personally argue for The Gods Themselves (although FE is certainly worse).

[asajeffrey.livejournal.com]

Weaker than Zodiac? Shurely shome mishtake. I'd go for second-best myself. I am apparently in the minority in thinking Snow Crash would have made an awesome video game.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Pizza delivery sequence at the beginning, absolutely - twenty page summary of Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicammeral(sp?) Mind, less so.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Zodiac is one of my favourites. Diamond Age on the other hand had even less of a plot than his novels usually do, and a number of bizarre and pointless McGuffins (notably the fact that there is this miraculous tech that can do everything except convincing text-to-speech so you have to employ actresses to do this, and the tedious stuff about all these things that turn out to be equivalent to Turing machines).

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

SC actually started out as being a video game design, and in some of the sequencies that really does show.

I think DA is one of the better Stephenson SF novels - I'm not sure that th Baroque sequence, for example, qualifies as SF.

[asajeffrey.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on how much you like the Victoriana, and are prepared to overlook the structural problems. At the time, steampunk seemed so novel, so I'm not sure how well it's aged, but at the time it was ooh, shiny. And I liked (at least the first half of) the development of the central character from little girl to typical Stephenson uber-heroine.